公开(公告)号：US20250054726A1

公开(公告)日：2025-02-13

申请号：US18231534

申请日：2023-08-08

Applicant: APPLIED MATERIALS ISRAEL LTD.

Inventor： Yehuda Zur ,  Gal Bruner

IPC: H01J37/22 ,  H01J37/147 ,  H01J37/28

Abstract: A method of determining a depth of a feature formed in a first region of a sample, by: positioning a test structure with known dimensions in a processing chamber having a charged particle column tilted at a first tilt angle and first rotational angle; determining the first tilt angle and first rotational angle by: taking an image of the test structure with the charged particle column tilted at the first tilt angle and the first rotational angle, measuring, based on the image, distances between multiple edges of the test structure aligned with each other along a vector, determining ratios between the measured distances, and determining a calculated tilt angle and a calculated rotational angle of charged particle column from the ratios and the known dimensions of the structure; transferring the test structure out of the processing chamber and positioning the sample in the processing chamber such that the first region is under a field of view of the charged particle column; taking a first image of the feature with the column tilted at the first tilt angle and first rotational angle and taking a second image of the feature with the column is tilted at a second tilt angle, different than the first tilt angle, and a second rotational angle; and using stereoscopic measurement techniques to determine the depth of the feature based on the first and second images and the calculated tilt angle and calculated rotational angle.

公开(公告)号：US20250004386A1

公开(公告)日：2025-01-02

申请号：US18215083

申请日：2023-06-27

Applicant: Applied Materials Israel Ltd.

Inventor： Ilan BEN-HARUSH ,  Rafael BISTRITZER ,  Yehoshua COHEN

IPC: G03F7/00

Abstract: There is provided a system and method for examining a semiconductor specimen. The method includes obtaining a runtime image of a semiconductor specimen acquired by an examination tool; processing the runtime image to create one or more image strips each containing an edge, and for each image strip, extracting a sequence of topo points representative of a contour of the edge therein; providing the sequence of topo points for each image strip to a trained machine learning (ML) model to be processed, and obtaining, as an output of the ML model, a sequence of updated topo points; and obtaining measurement data on the runtime image using the sequence of updated topo points, wherein the measurement data has improved performance with respect to at least one metrology metric.

公开(公告)号：US20240281958A1

公开(公告)日：2024-08-22

申请号：US18113030

申请日：2023-02-22

Applicant: Applied Materials Israel Ltd.

Inventor： Boris LEVANT ,  Noam TAL ,  Ran YACOBY ,  Lilach CHOONA ,  Shaul PRES ,  Jasmin Sonia LINSHIZ ,  Shay YOGEV ,  Assaf ARIEL

IPC: G06T7/00 ,  G06N3/04 ,  G06N3/082 ,  H01J37/22 ,  H01J37/28 ,  H01L21/67

CPC classification number: G06T7/001 ,  G06N3/04 ,  G06N3/082 ,  H01J37/222 ,  H01J37/28 ,  H01L21/67288 ,  G06T2207/10061 ,  G06T2207/20081 ,  G06T2207/30148 ,  H01J2237/24578

Abstract: There is provided a system and method of examination of a semiconductor specimen. The method includes obtaining an e-beam image representative of a given layer of a given structure on the specimen in runtime, processing at least the e-beam image using a ML model, and obtaining yield related prediction with respect to the given structure prior to performing an electrical test. The ML model is previously trained using a training set comprising multiple stacks of e-beam images corresponding to multiple sites of the given structure on one or more training specimens, each stack of e-beam images representative of the at least given layer of a respective site; and test data acquired from an electrical test performed at the multiple sites and related to actual yield of the training specimens, the test data respectively correlated with the stacks of e-beam images and used as ground truth thereof.

公开(公告)号：US20240280805A1

公开(公告)日：2024-08-22

申请号：US18112876

申请日：2023-02-22

Applicant: Applied Materials Israel Ltd.

Inventor： Menachem LAPID ,  Nitzan CHAMIEL

IPC: G02B27/00 ,  G02B13/00 ,  G02B21/02

CPC classification number: G02B27/0025 ,  G02B13/0095 ,  G02B21/02

Abstract: The presently disclosed subject matter provides a method for aligning an objective and a pupil relay module of a microscope. The objective is configured to introduce an objective aberration component and the pupil relay module is configured to have a corresponding pupil relay module aberration component such that the pupil relay module aberration component compensates said objective aberration component when the pupil relay module is accurately aligned with the objective. The method comprises: (a) measuring a combined aberration indicator indicative of a combined aberration resulting from the optical combination of the objective and pupil relay module; (b) adjusting an optical alignment of the objective and pupil relay module based on the measured combined aberration indicator; (c) iterating (a) and (b) until the measured combined aberration indicator reaches a predetermined combined aberration indicator target thereby achieving accurate alignment.

公开(公告)号：US20240178022A1

公开(公告)日：2024-05-30

申请号：US18071400

申请日：2022-11-29

Applicant: APPLIED MATERIALS ISRAEL LTD.

Inventor： Ofer Dudovitch

IPC: H01L21/67 ,  B65G47/90 ,  H01J37/20 ,  H01J37/244 ,  H01J37/28 ,  H01L21/677 ,  H01L21/687

CPC classification number: H01L21/67253 ,  B65G47/90 ,  H01J37/20 ,  H01J37/244 ,  H01J37/28 ,  H01L21/67766 ,  H01L21/68707 ,  H01J2237/201 ,  H01J2237/20278 ,  H01J2237/24578 ,  H01J2237/31749

Abstract: A method of operating a substrate processing system that includes a substrate processing chamber, a substrate storage container and robot configured to select a substrate from the substrate storage container and transfer a selected substrate into the substrate processing chamber, the method comprising: detecting a lower edge and upper edge of the substrate; calculating a thickness of the substrate based on the detected lower and upper edges of the substrate; comparing the calculated thickness of the substrate to an expected thickness of the substrate; and (i) if the calculated thickness matches the expected thickness, controlling the robot to transfer the substrate into the substrate processing chamber, (ii) if the calculated thickness does not match the expected thickness, generating an alert indicating a thickness mismatch.

公开(公告)号：US11995848B2

公开(公告)日：2024-05-28

申请号：US17209086

申请日：2021-03-22

Applicant: Applied Materials Israel Ltd.

Inventor： David Uliel ,  Yan Avniel ,  Bobin Mathew Skaria ,  Oz Fox-Kahana ,  Gal Daniel Gutterman ,  Atai Baldinger ,  Murad Muslimany ,  Erez Lidor

IPC: G06K9/00 ,  G06F18/22 ,  G06T5/50 ,  G06T7/00 ,  G06T7/30 ,  H01J37/26

CPC classification number: G06T7/30 ,  G06F18/22 ,  G06T5/50 ,  G06T7/001 ,  H01J37/261 ,  G06T2207/20221 ,  G06T2207/30148 ,  H01J2237/221

Abstract: There is provided a system and method of examination of a semiconductor specimen, comprising: obtaining a sequence of frames of an area of the specimen acquired by an electron beam tool configured to scan the area from a plurality of directions, the sequence comprising a plurality of sets of frames each acquired from a respective direction; and registering the plurality of sets of frames and generating an image of the specimen based on result of the registration, comprising: performing, for each direction, a first registration among the set of frames acquired therefrom, and combining the registered set of frames to generate a first composite frame, giving rise to a plurality of first composite frames respectively corresponding to the plurality of directions; and performing a second registration among the plurality of first composite frames, and combining the registered plurality of first composite frames to generate the image of the specimen.

公开(公告)号：US20240152127A1

公开(公告)日：2024-05-09

申请号：US18412430

申请日：2024-01-12

Applicant: Applied Materials Israel Ltd.

Inventor： Chongyang C. Wang

IPC: G05B19/418

CPC classification number: G05B19/41865 ,  G05B2219/45031

Abstract: An indication of a sequence of cleaning operations associated with a substrate process at a manufacturing system is received. An indication of one or more criteria that trigger initiation of the sequence of operations during a process at one or more manufacturing equipment of the manufacturing system is also received. A set of instructions corresponding to the sequence of operations is generated. In response to a detection that at least one of the one or more criteria is satisfied, the generated set of instructions are executed to initiate the sequence of operations at the one or more manufacturing equipment.

公开(公告)号：US20240151669A1

公开(公告)日：2024-05-09

申请号：US17984041

申请日：2022-11-09

Applicant: APPLIED MATERIALS ISRAEL LTD.

Inventor： Alex Goldenshtein ,  Dan Tuvia Fuchs

IPC: G01N27/02

CPC classification number: G01N27/021 ,  G01N27/028

Abstract: A method for evaluating an impedance related value of a structure of a sample, the method includes: (i) performing a first illumination iteration that includes charging the structure with an illumination iteration charge; (ii) performing a second illumination iteration that includes imaging the structure to provide an image of the structure; a value of the illumination iteration charge and a value of a time difference between step (i) and step (ii) are determined to introduce a dependency between an impedance of the structure and the image of the structure; wherein steps (i) and (ii) are executed using an electron beam, and (iii) determining the impedance related value of the structure based on the image of the structure. There may be three or more values of the impedance related value.

公开(公告)号：US20240105522A1

公开(公告)日：2024-03-28

申请号：US17947972

申请日：2022-09-19

Applicant: Applied Materials Israel Ltd.

Inventor： Tomer Haim PELED ,  Bar DUBOVSKI ,  Noam TAL ,  Bobin Mathew SKARIA ,  Boris LEVANT ,  Tal FRANK

IPC: H01L21/66 ,  G06K9/62 ,  G06N20/00

CPC classification number: H01L22/12 ,  G06K9/6256 ,  G06N20/00

Abstract: There is provided a system and method for examining a semiconductor specimen. The method includes obtaining a runtime image of the specimen, and providing the runtime image as an input to an end-to-end (E2E) learning model to process, thereby obtaining, as an output of the E2E learning model, runtime measurement data specific for a metrology application. The E2E learning model is previously trained for the metrology application using a training set comprising a plurality of training images of the specimen and respective ground truth measurement data associated therewith, and one or more cost functions specifically configured to evaluate, for the plurality of training images and corresponding training measurement data outputted by the E2E learning model, one or more metrology benchmarks from a group comprising precision, correlation, and matching.

公开(公告)号：US11940390B2

公开(公告)日：2024-03-26

申请号：US17829593

申请日：2022-06-01

Applicant: Applied Materials Israel Ltd.

Inventor： Yotam Sofer ,  Shaul Engler ,  Boaz Cohen ,  Saar Shabtay ,  Amir Bar ,  Marcelo Gabriel Bacher

IPC: G01N21/88 ,  G06F18/00 ,  G06F30/27 ,  G06V10/70 ,  G06V10/98 ,  G06V20/69

CPC classification number: G01N21/8851 ,  G06F18/00 ,  G06F30/27 ,  G06V10/70 ,  G06V10/993 ,  G06V20/69 ,  G01N2021/8854

Abstract: A system, method and computer readable medium for examining a specimen, the method comprising: obtaining defects of interest (DOIs) and false alarms (FAs) from a review subset selected from a group of potential defects received from an inspection tool, each potential defect is associated with attribute values defining a location of the potential defect in an attribute space; generating a representative subset of the group, comprising potential defects selected in accordance with a distribution of the potential defects within the attribute space, and indicating the potential defects in the representative subset as FA; and training a classifier using data informative of the attribute values of the DOIs, the potential defects of the representative subset, and respective indications thereof as DOIs or FAs, wherein the trained classifier is to be applied to at least some of the potential defects to obtain an estimation of a number of expected DOIs.